Apolyton Civ2 Page

Scenario League Page

Fantasy Scenario Reviews

Overall Rating

18.5/30

COMMENTS: None.

Playability Rating

5.5 / 10

COMMENTS: This scenario starts off with a great premise: save a dying kingdom from attacks on all sides. This reminds me of the Fall of the Great Kesh. Except in this case, there is a fantasy twist. The Pirates and the Monsters are tearing up the southern Kingdom in the beginning of the game. This is simply because the units are unbalanced to begin with.

The first thing I should point out that is that this scenario was designed to be played on nothing higher than King. The beginning is quite good, with text blurbs and special heroes just like Shannara, but unlike that classic, this scenario starts the player off with a gigantic kingdom (and many units that have to be pushed around).

All the new units are merely amusing, and in the end, are mostly useless. Once the player kills a pirate unit, the game gives the player gunpowder. This allows the player to construct gunpowder based units and eventually win the game. As far as I know, conquest is the only way to win this game.

The author admits that he wanted to create a diplomacy victory, but could not since contact could be made with the Friesins immediately through the foreign affairs report. My thoughts on the playability is that once the player gets gunpowder, the playability is about nil as it becomes a simple build-conquest game. Surviving long enough to obtain gunpowder is also simple, just leave about three or more guard units in each of your major cities.

Level of General Care

8 / 10

COMMENTS: I would like to draw attention to the effort placed by the scenario creator into this game. Most of the units are balanced (in the beginning of the game) and the terrain is fairly believable. I really like the story blurbs that appear every now and then, as they push the plot along. The author does run out of events space, and after the first 15 or so turns, the scenario runs out of plot.

There are a few things to draw attention to, though. Most of the units have no documentation to back them up. The author did not make use of the Describe.txt available to augment the civilopedia files. The events file, upon receiving gunpowder, makes that fact clear to the user at least once every turn (the event file needs a JUSTONCE parameter). There is also the point of the Friesin contact. Do not take any units near them. The text message reminding the player the author had no clue about how to fix the situation is constantly displayed and redisplayed for the player's annoyance.

Art and Originality

5 / 10

ARTWORK: Most, if not all of the artwork is borrowed, and I've seen most of the event styles before in Shannara and Midguard. Once gunpowder is attained, the game becomes rather boring as your army gains strength enough to kill off the rather dumb AI.

I have hope that this scenario could be world-class though. Only a few changes need to be done to bring greatness to this scenario:

1. The events file needs to be cleared up from errors. (Adding a few JUSTONCE commands here and there would help greatly)
2. The author complained of running out of events space. There is a tip on Scenario League on how to attain unlimited events space. If the author needs delevent.exe, he need merely ask for it on the forum. A new event file for each year would be greatly appreciated.
3. The pirates could use a new city graphic, the current one doesn't suit them well. I can't imagine pirates living in a city that looks like fish excrement.
4. Make attaining gunpowder much more difficult (taking an original Pirate city would be sufficient).
5. Force the player to develop technologies for defense before getting Gunpowder perhaps. Stemming the tide, in other words. How about a special defensive unit that must be researched? It is far too easy to defend the larger cities.
6. More plot is necessary. Perhaps a few quests would be good too.
7. The fix the author is looking for the Friesins is quite simple: eliminate the alliance and peace between the player and the Friesins and make sure the player can't have any diplomacy wonders (Marco Polo, UN). Then the player would have to seek them out to make contact. If the player is aware the technology needed to win lies in their hands, war would not be declared between the two (a house rule would also be good here).